Saturday, February 22, 2003

Don't tell anybody, but there is a liberal media. It just isn't explicitly political very often. It's called Popular Culture.

Tomorrow night, some of the more outspoken popular icons will be appearing on the Grammy's. According to the LA Times at the Brit Awards last night:

Coldplay's Chris Martin broke away from the usual thank you speech Thursday at the Brit Awards, the local equivalent of the U.S. Grammys, to declare, "Awards are essentially nonsense, but we're all going to die when George Bush has his way -- it's good to go out with a bang."

Now, according the the esteemed fair and balanced Drudge, CBS has admonished the awards recipients and presenters:

"It, of course, is a final option [to cut the microphone.] But it's a very real option," said the top source, who demanded anonymity. "There is a time for political commentary, this is not one of them!"

Well now, isn't that special. Fred Barnes and Tucker Carlson may think that the entire country believes that loudmouthed, bowtied dough boys are sex symbols, but in the world that real people inhabit Springsteen, Eminem and Sheryl Crow are just a little bit more uh...familiar. The fact is that if more and more people start saying this stuff out loud, it may reach critical mass and result in curbing the radical excesses of this administration.

I think it's time for the real liberal media to start flexing it's muscle.

(Oh, and for those who think that celebrities speaking out on politics is silly, think again. It certainly isn't any more inappropriate than bloggers like us spouting our political opinons all over the blogosphere. We're a bunch of citizens sufficiently engaged and informed that we feel the need to express our opinions and join the debate. The difference is that celebrities have audiences of millions and I guarantee that the only people who'll really criticize them for speaking out about politics are those who disagree with them. Frankly, from the level of political discourse I hear on cable news these days, the professional pundits sound so tired and programmed that even I can't listen to it anymore it's so boring. Time to change the channel.)